He could hardly find the words he sought, so bright was the hope and wonder in his heart still. "Think—at a time like this—what humanity might gain. Creative powers, Paul, creative! Acting directly on the subconscious selves of everybody, intensifying every individual, whether he understands and believes or not! The gods, Paul—and nothing less—— You saw the daisy——"
Devonham seized both of his companion's hands, as he heard the torrent of wild, incoherent words: "You'll have the entire world against you," he interrupted. "Why seek crucifixion for a dream?" Then, as his hands were again flung off, he turned, a finger suddenly on his lips. "Hush, hush, Edward!" he whispered. "The house is sleeping still. You'll wake them all."
There was a new, strange authority about him. Dr. Fillery controlled himself. They went upstairs on tiptoe.
"Listen!" murmured Devonham, as they reached the first-floor landing. "That's what woke me first and led me to his room, but only to find it empty. He was already gone. I saw him join you on the lawn. I watched from the open window. Then—I lost him.... Listen!" He was trembling like a child.
The sound still echoed faintly, distant, rising and falling, sweet and very lovely, and hardly to be distinguished from the musical hum of wind that sighs and whispers across the strings of an æolian harp. To one man came incredible sensations as they paused a moment. Dim though the landing was, there still seemed a tender luminous glow pervading it.
"They're everywhere," murmured Fillery, "everywhere and always about us, though in different space. Through and behind and inside everything that happens, helping, building, constructing ceaselessly. Oh, Paul, how can you doubt and question value? Behind every single form and body, physical or mental, they operate divinely——"
"Mental! Edward, for God's sake——"
Devonham stepped nearer to him with such abruptness that his companion stopped. The pallor of the assistant's face so close arrested his words a moment. They held their breath, listening together side by side. The sounds grew fainter, died away in the stillness of the early morning, then ceased altogether. It was not the first time they had listened thus to the strange music, nor was it the first time that Fillery entered the room alone. As once before, his colleague remained outside, watching, waiting, half seduced, it seemed, yet vehemently against a sympathetic attitude. He watched his chief go in, he saw the expression on his face. Upon his own, behind a mild expectancy, lay a look of pain.
"Empty!" He heard the startled exclamation.
And instantly Devonham was at his side, a firm hand upon his arm, his eyes taking in an unused bed, a window opened wide, a glow of light and heat the early sunshine could not possibly explain. The perfume, as of flowers in the air, he noted too, and a sense of lightness, freshness, sweetness about the atmosphere that produced happiness, exhilaration. The room throbbed, as it were, with invisible waves of some communicable power even he could not deny. But of "N. H.," the recent occupant, there was no sign.